READY OR NOT (CAMREN)

SEVENTEEN

Camila surveyed her rather stark apartment with new eyes when she arrived home that night. Not much on the walls. Blinds, but no drapes. No specific color scheme to speak of. Sad reality: her place was boring. While true, she wasn't home a lot, she should still do more to make it hers, she thought, and reflected on Lauren's put-together loft space. Maybe some light-green curtains and matching throw pillows for the couch would give the room a little pop of color.

She would definitely look into that and smiled a little at the thought.

She made herself a late-night dinner and turned on the news. There was no sign of Karla at the apartment, but that made sense as she worked the night shift at the diner. Her plans were to stay with Camila for another week or so and then move in with one of the girls she worked with.

Camila checked her phone for the five-hundredth time that day, but she'd yet to have one of her messages returned from her sister, which in actuality wasn't all that unusual. However, she was anxious to hear how the payoff had gone with Tyrone and, honestly, more than a little nervous about it.

She thought back to earlier that morning when she'd handed her sister a manila envelope full of cash. Her cash that she'd withdrawn from the bank the day prior, counted out into what she hoped would be enough to satisfy this loser.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Karla asked from the doorway of her office.

Camila nodded. "Just remember to play nice and part ways on good terms if at all possible, but the parting-ways part is key."

Karla offered a half smile. "No holding on to ties with known criminals. Got it."

They stared at each other and Camila understood that it was gratitude she saw in her sister's eyes and it tugged at her. "You would do it for me, right?"

Karla nodded solemnly. "I would." With that, Camila pulled her sister into a hug and held her for several long moments. "I love you."

"I love you too," Karla said as she released her. "And I'm not gonna let you down."

But fourteen hours later, as crime report after crime report crawled its way across her TV screen, her heart clenched with trepidation. Her mind took off imagining all the things that could have gone wrong. In an attempt to calm herself, she took a fortifying breath and reminded herself of her purpose.

To get Karla on track to an easier life.

Today was a step in that direction.

Sure, she had everything riding on it and so did Karla, but they'd get through this, just like they'd gotten through everything else. She'd hear from Karla soon. Hell, she'd probably find her peacefully asleep on the couch when she woke up the next morning.

But as she slipped beneath the covers that night, her mind raced. She closed her eyes and attempted to shut out the world, to push past thoughts of money and drug dealers and even her business.

However, she knew of one distraction sure to take her mind away from all that, and she clung to it in her last lingering moments of consciousness.

LAUREN JAUREGUI.

She smiled at the memory of how Lauren had teased her in the office that day, or at the visual of Lauren delicately eating the delicious nachos in her apartment the week prior. She focused on the date, the real date, which lay ahead of them, and little by little, the stress of the day slid off her.

Lauren Jauregui was a bright spot, she thought to herself, in a time when she could use a bright spot.

**